Pages

Since GM food labelling has become a hot topic in America [1], US physicist, Dr Nancy Swanson, suggests

“It behooves us to educate ourselves about this important issue”.

In a series of articles in the Seattle Examiner, Swanson explains the what, how, and where of GMOs in America, and why the laws which should be protecting the public are simply not there. Data was drawn mainly from government sources (USDA:NASS, CDC) and some health institutes have been used to prepare a graphic description of the increasing disease trends correlated with increasing GM crops and increasing applications of glyphosate herbicide, which the majority of GM crops are genetically transformed to accumulate.

Graph after graph shows the same pattern: disease incidence remained relatively stable until around 1995, after which there has been a steady climb which continues year-on-year. The quantities of applied glyphosate and the percentage of GM corn and soya growing are superimposed on the charts. All trends can be seen to be following disturbingly parallel courses.

“Genetic engineering has aroused an
unprecedented controversy in the scientific world. It has been
described by one Nobel prize-winner as creating the greatest ethical
problem that science has ever had to face” (Straton).

This apparently topical quote is from
an article entitled “The Genetic Engineering debate” and dates
from 1977. At this time, the GM being debated involved microbes,
viruses and fungi, all much simpler that the higher plants and
animals being genetically transformed today.

March against Monsanto - Washington, USA.Photo by Stephen Melkisethian on Flickr

The recent global 'Millions Against Monsanto' movement with its global network of 'Marches Against Monsanto', and our own local 'Scotland Against Monsanto', reveal an unprecedented awareness of the modern
corruption of our food supply. A single company has been not only
permitted, but encouraged to seize total control of a whole swathe of
our food from farm to fork. And what's being forced upon us is not a
kind of food we want to eat.

In the 1990s, we were told all farming and food would be GM
in less than a decade. Biotech crops were going to beat the stresses
of drought, heavy metals and salinity, they would increase yields,
reduce pesticides and fix their own nitrogen.

GM is failing to deliver on any of these promises.

Crop yields continue to improve entirely due to conventional
breeding and yield increases in comparable crops have been greater in
Europe without GM crops than in the US with its vast GM monocultures.

Lower pesticide use has also been achieved in Europe without GM.
Where biotech crops have been grown year on year, pesticide use has
begun to escalate after a few seasons.

Contributions from 60 leading world experts, including the UN
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, called for a paradigm shift
away from conventional export-oriented, input-intensive, monoculture
agriculture and towards “ecological intensification”,
small-scale, crop-diverse, local, food production.

Unless it's been processed out of existence, DNA is present in all
food and feed. Because the amount of DNA is low compared with other
constituents and doesn't have a significant nutritional value, few
studies have been carried out on how the body handles it.

This has allowed regulators to issue blandly reassuring advice
about the safety of GM DNA based on generalisations and dogma, and
very little in the way of science.

For example, DNA in food has long been claimed to be rapidly
degraded in the digestive tract. This assertion is backed up by: “a
large number of experimental studies on livestock” have failed to
detect GM DNA in animal tissues and fluids. And just in case anyone
points out the foregoing aren't quite true, be reassured that, even
if an occasional DNA fragment does end up in animal produce, this is
no different from the occasional non-GM fragment which also ends up
there.

The messages of mere “fragments” of GM DNA which occur only
“occasionally” and are “no different” from any other DNA is
clear: there is nothing to worry about.

Dairy farming is a major industry. Modern veterinary science has
well-established normal reference values for the blood chemistry of
cows: a rise or fall in key blood components signals disease in
specific organs.

European dairy cows are now routinely fed on commercial
concentrated feed consisting of soya, maize and other grains. The
feed is designed to promote optimum milk production.

Strange, therefore, that a study of 240 cows drawn from eight
different (run-of-the-mill) farms in Denmark should all
show signs of liver and muscle toxicity, and some had impaired kidney
function also.

Welcome to GM-free Scotland

About us

Formerly known as the Scottish Consumers Association for Natural Food, Pro-natural Food Scotland was formed in 1996 by a group of concerned people in Glasgow, Scotland. We are funded entirely by donation and run by volunteers. We network with, and support, all like-minded groups and individuals. Our objective is to empower by raising awareness.